THE DAMNED

Chapter I


"I'm over forty, Frances, and rather set in my ways," I said
good-naturedly, ready to yield if she insisted that our going together
on the visit involved her happiness. "My work is rather heavy just now
too, as you know. The question is, could I work there--with a lot of
unassorted people in the house?"

"Mabel doesn't mention any other people, Bill," was my sister's
rejoinder. "I gather she's alone--as well as lonely."

By the way she looked sideways out of the window at nothing, it was
obvious she was disappointed, but to my surprise she did not urge the
point; and as I glanced at Mrs. Franklyn's invitation lying upon her
sloping lap, the neat, childish handwriting conjured up a mental picture
of the banker's widow, with her timid, insignificant personality, her
pale grey eyes and her expression as of a backward child. I thought,
too, of the roomy country mansion her late husband had altered to suit
his particular needs, and of my visit to it a few years ago when its
barren spaciousness suggested a wing of Kensington Museum fitted up
temporarily as a place to eat and sleep in. Comparing it mentally with
the poky Chelsea flat where I and my sister kept impecunious house, I
realized other points as well. Unworthy details flashed across me to
entice: the fine library, the organ, the quiet work-room I should have,
perfect service, the delicious cup of early tea, and hot baths at any
moment of the day--without a geyser!

"It's a longish visit, a month--isn't it?" I hedged, smiling at the
details that seduced me, and ashamed of my man's selfishness, yet
knowing that Frances expected it of me. "There are points about it, I
admit. If you're set on my going with you, I could manage it all right."

I spoke at length in this way because my sister made no answer. I saw
her tired eyes gazing into the dreariness of Oakley Street and felt a
pang strike through me. After a pause, in which again she said no word,
I added: "So, when you write the letter, you might hint, perhaps, that I
usually work all the morning, and--er--am not a very lively visitor!
Then she'll understand, you see." And I half-rose to return to my
diminutive study, where I was slaving, just then, at an absorbing
article on Comparative Aesthetic Values in the Blind and Deaf.